“What are you doing?'If I texted back too soon, he would think I wasn't doing anything and then he would probably try to come over. I watched another episode before texting him again: 'Watching Kim K. shop for a dress. You?'He texted back: 'Standing outside your door'.Shit!”

“My shift isn’t over until six,” I say glumly.“Hold on,” he says. He pulls a Blackberry from his coat pocket and taps out a text. It buzzes, and he taps out another text before stashing it back in his pocket. “I think you can take the rest of the afternoon off.”“I only have a week left, but my boss would kill me,” I say.“I’m your boss, Anna.”“What do you mean?”There’s that smile again, the one with all those teeth. “I just bought Walmart,” he says.”

“In a cab back in Jersey, I finally answered one of thirty-three of Kyle's text messages (he called forty-seven times, I shit you not. Who does that!)”

“What I called jottings would not be a rendering of the text, not so to speak a translation with another symbolism. The text would not be stored up in the jottings. And why should it be stored up in our nervous system?”

“I thought you weren’t allowed to have a phone,” he says. “Or was that a really pathetic excuse to avoid giving me your number?”“I’m not allowed. My best friend gave it to me the other day. It can’t do anything but text.” He turns the screen around to face me. “What the hell kindof texts are these?” He turns the phone around and reads one.“Sky, you are beautiful. You are possibly the most exquisite creature in the universe and if anyone tells you otherwise, I’ll cut a bitch.” He archesan eyebrow and looks up at me, then back down to the phone. “Oh, God. They’re all like this. Please tell me you don’t text these to yourself for dailymotivation.”

“I text tiny a minute later.MADE NEW GAY FRIEND.And he texts backPROGRESS!!!”